...it is completely unacceptable for a hospital to adhere to the racism or sexism of a patient. If you do not want the person treating you for whatever reason then sign out....

I agree with this. I think that the pt has the right to their beliefs, but that the hospital shouldn't have honored them. He could chose to say, "I don't want care from a particular staff person", but if that means he needs to discharge himself or go AMA then, I think it should be left to him. The hospital should not, in my opinion, make staff placements based on racist beliefs.

The swastika tattoo is the reason the plaintiff knows that she was removed from the baby's care because of race. Clearly racism on the part of the father. Now I am a white male...I have not faced racial discrimination to this degree. I have had African American patients in the ER request an African American nurse, but, again, it was not the degree faced by the plaintiff of this case. If, however, I had a patient of another race, and they had a tattoo that read "white man must die" I think I would be more than willing to pass off responsibility for this person's care to someone else. Not because I disagree with his racism, but because I value my own safety.

For the man with the swastika tattoo, what would he have done to this nurse is something bad had happened to his baby...even if it was totally unrelated to the care provided by the nurse? My guess is, given his tattoo and his views he is not going to think rationally about it. He is not going to say "my child died. I don't trust this nurse because of her race, but I know she didn't have anything to do with it." In his mind, of course she is going to have something to do with it. What is he going to do to her as she is walking to her car at night? Now look at it from the hospital's perspective. They were told by this man that he refused for this nurse to care for his child. They refused to change nurses. Something happens. Now he blames (financially speaking) because they did not change nurses at his request. Worse yet, he may harm the nurse in question. It is discovered that the hospital knew that he did not like this nurse..."threatened" her with his tattoo. Yet the did nothing. Now the nurse or her next of kin could go after the hospital for doing nothing to prevent the situation.

This is just a bad situation all around. I think it's horrible for the father to demand the nurse be removed from the case for racist reasons, and I think the views of the father are absolutely despicable; however, I can't really say that the hospital made the wrong decision.

Well, I certainly don't want to be the charge nurse who didn't reassign her only to find her harmed after the shift. I have a hard time believing that my finances are going to be protected by federal law when I am sued for not protecting a staff member who was threatened by a family member.

Well, I certainly don't want to be the charge nurse who didn't reassign her only to find her harmed after the shift. I have a hard time believing that my finances are going to be protected by federal law when I am sued for not protecting a staff member who was threatened by a family member.

I think it's a sick situation, but the hospital has to honor the patients request; he does have a right to refuse treatment even if its a sick and wrong reason. I suppose the hospital could tell him that there are no other nurses available to care for the child, but e might not believe it if he saw non black nurses working...but why would this nurse want to care for the child with a racist father? I imagine it would be very unpleasant. We have labor patients that refuse male nurses but the nurse never sues the hospital for sexual discrimination...

I am not certain that the hospital MUST honor the bigoted or racist requests of the patient/family.
There are certainly cultural or religious needs relative to gender etc that occur when people are hospitalized and should be honored, IMHO, but racism?

The facility did nothing wrong. If there was another nurse available, the hospital should honor the patient's request, even if it's for an idiotic reason. It's simply a part of working in the field. I've been unable to care for a couple of patients in the past because they requested for a nurse of specific race. Do I get offended? Nope, because it isn't about ME. I'm there to do what needs to be done, not challenge anyone's belief system.

I can't get over the fact that people are losing sight of the fact that the hospital is BREAKING THE LAW. Why do you think the attorneys had such a fit about the note in the chart??

It seems to me that MORE people need to challenge people's idiotic belief systems. If regular people didn't insist on challenging people's belief systems, we'd still have minorities sitting in the back of the bus.

I can't get over the fact that people are losing sight of the fact that the hospital is BREAKING THE LAW. Why do you think the attorneys had such a fit about the note in the chart??

It seems to me that MORE people need to challenge people's idiotic belief systems. If regular people didn't insist on challenging people's belief systems, we'd still have minorities sitting in the back of the bus.

I'm sorry, but this is a two way street. African Americans have requested that I not be their nurse...that they have 'black' nurse. I have seen instances where a minority patient/family member has gone to our charge nurse to request a nurse change based solely on the race of the original nurse....and it is pretty much always accommodated. I've even see situations where the charge nurse has written in the chart "nurse assignment changed based on patient request for an African American nurse" (this note is done in the name of customer service...ugh). I don't have a problem with it, but some nurses might. If a change is mandated by a supervisor, is this not breaking the law?